Philip Brasher, Agri-PulseAgri-Pulse reports:
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sharply criticized House Republicans’ proposed farm bill on Wednesday, saying they are relying on “budget gimmicks” to fund legislation that overpromises and won’t deliver for producers.
Talking to reporters a day ahead of the scheduled House Agriculture Committee debate on Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson’s proposal, Vilsack endorsed an alternative proposal put forth by Senate Ag Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., earlier this month. Vilsack said she has taken a more sensible approach by securing money outside the farm bill to pay for priorities such as increased reference prices.
Stabenow has provided “a practical, doable, get-it-done farm bill in order to move the process, accelerate the process along, basically providing a little bit of everything for everybody,” Vilsack said.
In contrast, he said of the House bill, “Creating the false expectation that you can basically please everyone, and then using essentially counterfeit money to do it, I think creates a problem.”
Vilsack cited the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that restricting USDA’s authority to use the Commodity Credit Corporation’s Section 5 spending authority would save only $8 billion that could be used to pay for increasing reference prices and making other changes to commodity programs. Thompson has insisted the savings are closer to $53 billion.
“So there’s quite a delta between an $8 billion CBO, impartially designed and designated score, and the utilization of some budget gimmicks to essentially create sort of counterfeit money if you will, to be able to fit all of the other efforts that this farm bill is proposing,” Vilsack said.
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